The PasteBoard

"Perhaps we should go back to the stone and chisel."

It meant I could be a chisel sharpener in order to earn a living. Much less complex than the world we have built for ourselves.

So is it a good idea to introduce any form of advanced technology into any electoral system? More specifically, of course, I refer to the USA electoral system. Diebold machines and touch screen displays and all that stuff. There has been talk in the past over how error free they were. Were they tampered with? Did the last two elections get stolen because of hacked machines? All that sort of stuff.

Now rumours are coming to the fore regarding potential anomalies with touch screen display voting systems in the State of Texas. Clink on the link to find out more.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/e_voting_issues_in_texas

The more I think about these systems the more I think we should stick with the stone and chisel method of electing our political representatives. Good old fashioned paper cannot be hacked. Any changes to the ballot paper makes it invalid. Of course, we don't need to be told how to work an electoral system to our advantage but the days of "vote early, vote often" have largely been taken out of our system and while no system is perfect this is one area in my life where I am very happy for technology to take a back seat.

What price, democracy?